This is down-home comfort food straight from Westery, RI. I never grew up eating sausage and potatoes, but sometime in my teen years I started hearing about it. I was always leery of trying new things back then so it wasn’t until my twenties that I ever ate it. Since then it has been an easy week-night dish that takes minutes to put together. I love this the next day too.
Basically take potatoes (say- one per person), onions and peppers put them in a dish with some salt and Italian seasonings. The you break-up Italian sausage, 1/4 lb per person, (hot, mild, turkey,chicken,pork - which ever) cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes. Remove the foil, give everything a stir and bake another 20 minutes uncovered. Serve it up with a salad and some crusty bread – dinner is done!
I have seen some people put vinegar peppers or hot pepper flakes in there too and that would be awesome too! If I had them, I would have added them in. I usually add a shake or two of crushed red pepper flakes too, but last time my daughter thought it was ‘too spicy’ so I held off this time. I think that is one of the reasons I love this dish so much, it’s flexible.
I wish I had a better picture of this on a plate, but we had just gotten in from soccer practice and had to leave for school open house – no time for pictures! Sorry, maybe next time. I will say that I always make more that I need for dinner because the left-overs are the best (and this from a girl who usually only eats left-overs of Thanksgiving dinner).
I do have some time-saving tips though. You could make this the night before and heat it in the microwave if you are really short on time. Please, don’t make this in the morning thinking you will cook it when you get home; the potatoes with discolor (spoken from experience). I used regular Italian sausage this time, but when I use turkey sausage I spray the pan with cooking spray and add some olive oil to the top of the potatoes and peppers. I remove the casings from the sausage, personally I like them gone, but only out of personal preference – keep them if you want. This travels really, really well – if you are attending a pot-luck with me, I will probably be bringing this dish.
- 1 – 1½ lb Italian Sausage (hot, mild, pork or turkey)
- 1 red bell pepper, chopped and seeded
- 1 green bell pepper, chopped and seeded
- 2 Italian frying peppers, chopped and seeded
- 1 large onion, chopped
- 4 – 6 medium potatoes (I use red), large cubed
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp Italian seasons
- preheat oven to 375F
- in a large (9×13) baking pan place peppers, onions and potatoes
- sprinkle with salt and Italian seasonings
- remove sausage from casings, cut each link into 4 pieces
- arrange sausage pieces on top of peppers, onions and potatoes.
- cover with foil and poke a hole in the top to allow steam to escape
- bake 20 minutes
- uncover and stir
- bake uncovered an additional 20 minutes until potatoes are soft and sausage is cooked through
